Olympus Camedia P-400 Reviews

Imaging-resource reviews the Olympus Camedia P-400 and writes;“Overall, the Olympus P-400 is a versatile, relatively easy-to-use printer that outputs excellent quality images. We loved being able to print directly from any type of memory card, and the ability to choose from an wide range of page layouts and creative options. The built-in color adjustment and B&W and Sepia filters are nice, but the monochrome LCD limits the image enhancement capabilities when working directly from a memory card…”rating: N/A

User Opinions

Olympus Camedia P-400 User Reviews

AWESOME“This is an amazing printer. Not too slow for color, and professional quality. I’ve published many photographs with this printer and I’m completely happy. The consumables are expensive but not outrageous. I’ve had the printer for almost a year and it has been reliable, easy to use, and nearly perfect. For the cost, it is amazing.” – by “rtleemd”Rating:

olympus camedia digital color printer p-400“Absolutely love this printer. It is so easy to use and the results are amazing. We printed some of our favorite pictures and put them right into frames. It looks like a truly professional job. We have given prints to family members that don’t believe we did them ourselves. The only complaint – is to plan ahead – the printer ribbons and paper are not carried most places – so order ahead and in quantity.” – by A CustomerRating:

I have them all, and this one is the best“This is the be all and end all to digital photomaking. I have Epsons and HP’s and have tried just about every printing solution out there. This one outputs the most amazing prints on very durable paper, that will last a long time. I am a cosmetic dentist, and rely on good, fast prints of before and after photos. This does it all right in my office. The consumables (I call them combustibles) are expensive, but professional output is more costly for sure. My wife is a graphic designer and is thrilled with the results as well. Buy this if you want good, fast, archival prints. Works grat with Wndows XP, incedentally. “ – by Robert RiosecoRating:

An excellent snapshot printer but not for black and white“This is an excellent personal photo printer but the P-400 cannot put out a black and white image without a color cast. The color cast is usually a faint green even when the monitor-printer have been fully profiled and the image sent contains only grayscale pixels. This is true when the image is sent as either RGB or CMYK file. The printer seems to lay down CMY layers with its K layer to generate neutral tones between black and white and this must be what gives the black and white images their color cast. Still, for photos I share with friends and family its photographic output can’t be beat.” – by A CustomerRating:

Exceptional, professional quality at a low price“I recently returned from Hawaii and made a photo album with multiple different sized printed on a single page. Then bound all the pages with a spiral and use it as my custom album. Much nicer than any photo album or insert and everyone compliments me on it. I just wish that they would make an adapter to accept the Xd card type as I have to print through my lasptop. This is a beautiful home toy you’ll have lots of fun with. And remember: Your not paying thousands for a photo-lab but you get vitually the same results. BUY IT!” – by RayRating:

Quality images at home“Prints faster through IPhoto on Mac than through the digital cards. For 8×10 size photos, still love my P400, even with the cost of film/paper and supplies. Even though prints can be ordered cheaper on some sites through the web, the quality of this printer HANDS DOWN beats anything I’ve ever gotten back from photo houses on or off line.” – by A CustomerRating:

Great photo printer for the commited digital photographer“Driver bitterness aside, the quality coming out of this printer had me jumping up & down once the photos started coming out. I’m really pleased, and the overall quality of the prints is enough to let me overlook the negatives, which have all been temporary.” – by W. BextonRating:

Simply Amazing“Got this printer for $199 new (plus tax). This is the only printer I have ever used that literally is plug and play. No tweaks or fiddling with settings (though the option to do that is available). Right out of the box it prints so good you’d think you were in a Kodak or Fuji lab. I’ve shot photos with Lumix LC5 and Lumix FZ20 and the prints are spectacular. The trickiest part was loading in the new film, after using up the sample film that came pre-loaded. It took a couple minutes to read the directions. Someone else commented about this and gave the printer a “1” rating. Big deal. After you install the film once, you’ve got the idea. “ – by AmazonianRating:

Amazing printer“You can get good output from good inkjet printers, but only dye sub printers give you output that truly looks like it came from a professional lab. The DPI relative to ink jets is meaningless-this printer has NO DOTS. If you look at a print under a magnifying glass, you can’t find the dots like you can with an inkjet print, because there aren’t any. Dye sub printers are continuous tone, and the look they produce is stunning. I recommend printing from your PC rather than directly from the printer. Using Photoshop or any other program will give you excellent results. If you tell Photoshop what printer you are using, it will estimate the output on your monitor and help you determine if saturation is too low or too high. That’s if you’re being really picky. 90% of my shots print very well with no editing.” – by D. RichardsonRating:

Downloads

Olympus Camedia P-400 Brochure & User Guide

Olympus Camedia P-400 Features

The CAMEDIA P-400 high-speed printing produces one A4 size sheet in approximately 90 seconds*. With the world’s first built-in LCD monitor, it allows image checking and trimming using the printer unit only, bringing professional photo quality prints to home printing. In addition, the consumer range price that is extremely affordable compares to conventional A4-size dye-sublimation allows anyone to enjoy A4-size high-quality output.

With the launch of the C-800L, the first in the CAMEDIA series, Olympus have led the industry with a PC-less printing system, the so-called direct printing system. Using the direct printing system, the CAMEDIA P-400 is also equipped with a SmartMediaTM card and PCMCIA Type II compatible PC card slot to allow a range of printing options without using PC, with a 16 gradation monochrome liquid crystal (LCD) panel for image monitor. The print options include on-screen trimming and rotation of memory card images as well as album print, multi-print and index print.

In addition, the CAMEDIA P-400 is installed with a parallel port and a USB connector, so it may be used as a high-quality photo printer connected to a PC.

Main Features
A4 Size, Photo Quality Dye-Sublimation Processing
The CAMEDIA P-400 uses the dye-sublimation processing, so it allows detailed color reproduction of 16.77 million colors per dot (256 YMC gradations per color per dot). Unlike printers that produce color in multiple dots such as the ink jet printer, the P-400 allows one pixel gradation for 1 dot, which is smaller than 300 dpi, the so-called maximum naked eye resolution. It is possible to produce up to 7.68 megapixels on one A4 sheet (2400 x 3200 pixels). Therefore, it can produce subtle color variations of half tones and gradations that have been impossible to achieve in the past except with a silver halide photograph. With the A4 size print, which has only been possible previously with commercial printers*1, you can experience the maximal photo quality prints even from the image of digital camera with 3 megapixels.
*1 For a dye-sublimation processing printer

Commercial Quality with Consumer Price Range
The printer using the conventional dye-sublimation processing to print A4 size photographs is extremely expensive and has only been used for commercial purposes. Olympus has made a priority of enabling home users to enjoy photo quality and has achieved the consumer price range by using innovative design for every aspect of the printer. Printing one sheet with high photo quality costs less than 200yen (for standard A4 size paper) that is same level as ink jet printers.

High Speed Printing
Olympus developed the new 2400 dot thermal transfer head to achieve high-speed photo quality printing for the P-400. P-400 can print a photorealistic quality on A4 size sheet in about 90 seconds which is several times faster than that by a ink jet printer with reducing user’s waiting time.

Home Printing without PC
Commonly with the other CAMEDIA digital color printers, the P-400 can print images directly from the SmartMediaTM card taken with the CAMEDIA series digital camera. It has a PCMCIA Type II compatible PC card slot, so you can use flash memory card as well as Compact FlashTM card, Memory StickTM card with the use of flash memory and a PC card adaptor. *
Further, it is also used with DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) which records digital camera printing information, so it is possible to select images, set the number of copies and set trimming using a digital camera.
* Compatible only with data taken with a digital camera.

World’s First Built-in LCD Monitor
The CAMEDIA P-400 has a built-in LCD monochrome monitor, where you can see the image and change print layouts including multi-prints, album prints and index prints using only the printer unit without PC. Not only trimming images with checking it on the monitor screen, but also P-400 offers a range of print processing like sepia and monochrome filters, white frames, soft-focus backgrounds, “wood frame” backgrounds and photo accents. The printer itself can adjust the tones, sharpness, gamma, brightness and contrast of the images without using PC software.

Paper Variety
The CAMEDIA P-400 is equipped with special paper and ink ribbon that allow it to combine photo quality color reproduction with high durability printing. With postcard and L-size card paper, non-white frame picture can be printed.

Improved PC Interface
The CAMEDIA P-400 can be connected to a PC. It is equipped with a parallel port, the regular PC printer connection terminal, as well as a USB connector, so it can be used with Windows 95/98/NT4.0/2000 and Macintosh OS8.6/OS9*.

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